Need suggestion for small clustered/HA storage

[magnusvr2]

Background: Customer has an onsite server running a special windows app  which runs the robotic pallet system. Downtime is extremely expensive.  Even an uncontrolled reboot is expensive since the database will become  old and all the pallets have to be manually inventoried.

We are going to run that system as a VM in a Fault Tolerance cluster  with two ESXi's on site.

We need some sort of storage to match, and it  needs to be fault tolerant in someway. There should be no single point  if failure, while preferably keeping cost to a reasonable limit since we  will only be needing 100GB of storage.

A Netapp 2040HA would for instance do the job, but those are of course on the expensive and overkill side. Also, i prefer iSCSI and NFS to FC. Also, we are an HP shop, if there is such an HP product, that would be nice.

Any good ideas / experiences would be appretiated!

/Magnus, Sweden

[bulletprooffool]

Hi Magnus,

Welcome to the community.

HP have many offerings that will be able to resolve your problem - I'd suggest speaking to your reseller though, as they'll know your environment and be able to assist in this decision. (perhaps http://h18006.www1.hp.com/storage/highlights/lefthandsans.html)

Given the expense of a reboot, FT definitely sounds like the tool for you (that or OS / App level clustering) , so all you need is basic iSCSI / NFS / FC Storage and you should be good. - You should be able to argue for budget for proper storage though, given the cost of each reboot.

Problem is that you'll want something with suffucient Fault tolerance built in (multi path / RAID etc) - so you are looking at proper business grade storage that will be pricey.

There are many cheap, VMware certified solutions like Drobo, EMC IX2/IX4, readyNas, but these lack the storage level Fault tolerance that you'd need in your scenario.

Good luck.

[Dr_Virt]

Lefthand and Equalogic can do this.

I have personnally tested the fault tolerance capabilities of the Lefthand line and been impressed.

[ChrisDearden]

Thats one of the first actual use cases for FT that I've ever seen !

I woudl imagine that some form of virtual SAN is going to be the best bet - I as I understand it they can provide very high levels of availability ( for example with the Lefthand VSA - Network RAID)

[magnusvr2]

Hi All,

Iv'e decided to go with HP p4000 VSA, formerly known as LeftHand, I believe? According to the HP people I have spoken to it should suite the purpose very well. It is also the only software solution I have found that does syncrounous mirroring.

This would be my setup:

2	DL385 G7 8 Core 8GB Ram
2	iLo-license
8	146GB SAS 10k
2	ESX Advanced 1CPU lic
2	HP 4000 VSA >10TB
2	VSA Support 3 y 9x5
1	vSphere Server Foundation
1	VMWare Heartbeat
1	UPS APC Smart 1500VA 30 min

I have thrown in a really expensive heartbeat license there since I take it it is not possible to do FT on the vCenter itself?

Input on this design greatly appreciated!

KR

Magnus